The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies (8 page)

J
immy only had
a quarter. Even so, he walked to the arcade. It was better than sitting around at home bored out of his mind. When he reached the arcade, he realized he was out of luck. All the cool games cost fifty cents or more. Then he noticed one, shoved in a far corner. Galactic Zap. It looked pretty old. But right on the coin slot, he saw a big blue
25
. He walked over to it, then hesitated, reluctant to make a bad decision.

“Is this any good?” he said out loud in the general direction of a cluster of kids.

“Too hard,” a kid on the next machine said without looking over. “Nobody plays it anymore. I'm surprised they don't get rid of it.”

“How hard?” Jimmy asked. He twirled the quarter around between his fingers. He loved hard games.

“Ridiculously hard. Don't waste your money. I only ever saw one kid who was good at it, and he doesn't come around anymore.” The kid jerked his hand on the joystick and
cursed. Then he stomped away. Jimmy realized he'd distracted the kid.

He walked all around the arcade twice. But nothing else was a quarter.

“Probably a total waste,” he said.

He dropped the coin into the slot. Then he pushed the start button. The
GET READY
message scrolled on, then faded. To Jimmy's surprise, the graphics were pretty good for an old machine. And the game was more fun than he'd expected. It was basically a first-person shooter. He was flying a futuristic fighter ship, battling against waves of alien attackers.

The other kid was right—the game was hard. But Jimmy seemed to have a knack for it. He beat the first wave, and then the second. By the time he'd defeated the seventh wave, he hadn't even taken one hit.
Definitely my kind of game,
he thought.

As he cleared wave thirty and waited for the bonus points to add up, he glanced around. The arcade was almost empty. He wondered whether the owner was going to make him leave before his game was finished.

At wave fifty, he heard someone walk up behind him. When he had a chance, he glanced over his shoulder. There was a guy there with a broom.

“Are you closing?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, but that's okay. I have to clean up the place and count the change. Keep playing. I understand.”

“Thanks.”

Jimmy kept playing. His arms started to hurt, but the game was so much fun—and he was so good at it—that he didn't mind.

Wave seventy-five came and went. The game grew harder with each round, but Jimmy got better.

When he cleared wave 127, he was startled to see a
GAME OVER
message flash on the screen.

“Hey—why did it end?”

The man walked over to him. “That's as hard as it would ever get.”

“What do you mean?”

“During the real invasion.”

“Huh?” Jimmy had no idea what he was talking about.

“This isn't a game,” the man said. “It's a simulator. We need to find kids who have what it takes to defeat an invasion of the Krellex.”

If this is real, it's the coolest thing that's ever happened to me,
Jimmy thought. He pictured himself leading an army of gamers in a space war against some hideous enemy. But he was still pretty sure the guy was just playing around. “You aren't serious,” Jimmy said.

“I sure am. The Krellex armada is on its way. Let me show you.” He went behind the counter and pressed a button. A three-dimensional image formed in front of Jimmy, showing a scene from deep space. The man pressed other buttons, and the image zoomed toward a fleet of ships that looked just like the ones Jimmy had blown out of the sky in the game.

“That's them?” he asked.

The man nodded.

“And that's who I'll be blowing out of the sky?” He figured the real thing would be a thousand times better than the game.

“Not exactly,” the man said. He flipped a switch, and the image vanished.

“What do you mean?”

“That's who I can't let you blow out of the sky,” the man said. “You're far too good. Your reflexes are perfect for battling us.” As he walked toward Jimmy, his face seemed to flicker like it was a projection.

For an instant, Jimmy saw the real face of the Krellex. Then the man put his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. Something stung him.

“There are so many of you,” the man said as the world around Jimmy started to grow fuzzy. “It's a good thing you are so easy to find. And so easy to defeat. If your brains were as sharp as your reflexes, my people would be in trouble.”

S
he keeps us
in cages. Seven of us. Three boys and three other girls. There were eight of us, but the little boy in the cage next to me screamed himself out this morning. He's gone. I don't know where she took him, but I know we'll never see him again.

She'll find someone else to fill the cage. She has to. There's no end to her hunger. And there's no shortage of us. I was foolish enough to walk into the woods beyond our village in search of mushrooms, even though I'd heard a thousand tales of the dangers that lurked among the ancient oaks. I had no choice. Our family was hungry.

The witch caught me in a snare trap and dragged me to her cottage with the help of a pair of bloodred foxes. I know my father looked for me. He must have. But this place is hidden. I think it is protected by magic. That was a month ago. Maybe longer. I tried to scratch a mark on the wall for each day, but sometimes I forget.

It wouldn't be so bad if she wanted a servant or a companion, though she is hideously ugly to look at. It would be
terrible but short if she wanted my flesh. I am not so lucky as to have died quickly. She feeds off our screams.

It was easy for her to draw a scream from me at first. All she had to do was thrust her misshapen face close to mine and cackle. As her acid breath burned my eyes, I screamed so hard, I thought my throat would tear.

I still scream. But something inside me is dying like the last ember in an untended fireplace. I almost don't care what happens to me. That is how weary I am. Terror slowly replaces itself with emptiness. I wonder if I'm ready to be silent. Each time I have that thought, I see my sisters and my youngest brother. One of them could be next. Or my friend Marah from the village. She never watches where she is going.

The witch is evil, but she's also smart. She gives us anything we ask for. The boy in the next cage—he wanted to draw. She gave him charcoal and paper. She left him alone for a whole day. Then she burst in and shredded his drawings.

He shrieked. I could see her quivering with pleasure as she devoured his screams. He lashed out at her with his fists. It did no good. She has spells that keep her from harm. A girl who tried to kick her yesterday ended up with a broken foot. Last month, a boy tried to stab her with his hunting knife. The blade snapped. I doubt it would have made a difference if his strike had plunged true. A witch as evil as she must surely lack a heart.

Our cages are sealed with spells, too. There is no way out.

We've whispered to one another our dreams of destroying her, but nobody knows if there is any way to harm her. Surely, there must be. I've heard that witches perish in water. I've also heard they perish in fire. It doesn't matter. I have neither.

Twice this week, she's asked me what I desire. I guess she
knows I'm running dry of screams and she hopes to milk a few more meals from my terror and despair. I didn't want another reason to scream, but as miserable as my life was, I realized I wasn't ready for it to end. I needed to ask for something. I looked across the room at the youngest boy, who was huddled in a corner, shivering. Maybe I could do something for him. As I thought of that, I realized that I might be able to do something for all of them.

“A scarf,” I said. “My mother was teaching me to knit. I never finished the scarf I was making….” I stopped. It was too much to hope for.

“How special,” she whispered.

That evening, after she feasted on the screams of one of the older girls, she dropped a small cloth sack into my cage.

I waited until she left. My fingers shook as I reached inside. Yarn. Two skeins. And wooden knitting needles.

Perhaps it was folly to make anything. She'd just take it from me and destroy it. I knew that. We all knew that. whatever she gave us, it was all for one purpose. But my own purpose gave me strength.

I started to knit. The memory came back. Sitting by the fire in our hut. Mother and my sisters knitting or sewing. Father sharpening his tools while my brothers crafted arrows and boasted of their hunting skills.

I knitted all night. I wanted to finish the scarf before it was ripped from my hands. I was just casting off the last stitch when the witch's shadow fell across me.

“How lovely.” Her mouth twitched, as if the word
lovely
hurt her tongue.

She opened the cage and bent toward me. I let the scarf drop from the needles. She bent farther.

I screamed. Not out of fear, but for courage and strength. Before she could move, I plunged the needles into her ears, hoping that this might be her one weakness. If the screams could enter her body that way, maybe other things could, too. If I was wrong, I'd know as soon as the needles snapped.

I wasn't wrong. The needles sank in, all the way to where I had them clutched in my fists.

She screamed, staggered away from me, and grabbed the needles. She pulled hard, yanking them from her ears.

She threw the needles to the floor, then grabbed me by the throat. Around me, I could see the cage doors swing open. I'd hurt her enough to weaken her spells.

But I'd done something more important than that. “You're deaf!” I shouted as she squeezed.

“Deaf!” the others shouted.

She didn't seem to hear them. Her fingers crushed my throat. My brain screamed for air. I felt myself grow weak and dizzy. It didn't matter. Now that she could no longer hear our screams, the witch would starve to death. I'd defeated her. My brothers and sisters would be safe. My friend Marah could wander the woods without danger of snare traps.

The others raced into my cage and pried the witch's hands from my throat. She struggled, and tossed some of them aside like dolls, but she seemed to grow weaker with each moment. One of the larger boys looped the scarf around the witch's neck and tied it to the bars. That gave us a chance to escape.

We fled from the cottage into the forest. I blinked against the sunlight, unable to believe I was free. In the trees, a bird sang. The sound was sweet in my ears. It didn't feed my body, but it fed my spirit, filling some of the emptiness that had been left behind by my screams.

T
he Sanderson family
was allergic to cats. Dad Sanderson was a little bit allergic. Mom Sanderson was very allergic. The kids, Albert and Grace Sanderson, were fairly allergic.

For some reason, the Sanderson family owned a cat. When people asked why they would own something they were allergic to, the best answer they could come up with was, “We don't know.”

The Sandersons went through boxes of tissues the way most families went through quarts of milk. At any particular time, there was a good chance that some Sanderson was sneezing, sniffling, or dripping.

One morning, when Dad Sanderson was reading the magazine that came with the Sunday paper, he jumped up and said, “By golly, here's the answer to our problems!” He paused to glance over at Pussums Sanderson, the orange tabby who caused the family to sneeze and sniffle and drip so much.

“What is it, dear?” Mom Sanderson asked.

“It says here that a cat doesn't cause allergies if you give it a bath once a week.”

“Give the cat a bath?” Grace asked.

“That's what it said,” Dad told her. “And that's exactly what we'll do.”

Pussums, with that amazing radar that cats possess, had already snuck from the room. It took a half hour for the rest of the Sandersons to find her and carry her to the bathroom.

“There, there, Pussums,” Mom Sanderson said as she started to lower the cat into a sink that was filled with lukewarm water.

Pussums scratched Mom Sanderson about five hundred times in five hundred places.

“Here, dear, let me try,” Dad Sanderson said, reaching for the cat.

Mom Sanderson gladly handed Pussums over.

Dad Sanderson quickly received scratches in about seven hundred places.

“Let us try,” Albert and Grace said as they reached for Pussums.

Between them, they probably got about thirteen hundred scratches. Pussums leaped from their arms and escaped—high, dry, and unbathed.

Mom Sanderson got out the Band-Aids. Dad Sanderson got out the antiseptic ointment. Mom and Dad and Albert and Grace all started swelling and puffing up like birthday balloons. They might have been allergic to the cat, but they were
really
allergic to cat scratches.

“You know,” Dad Sanderson said as he finished unwrapping Band-Aid number two thousand, “I really don't mind suffering through a bit of the sniffles now and then.”

“Yes,” Mom Sanderson agreed, “there are certainly worse things than a little bitty allergy.”

“We can live with it,” Grace and Albert said.

Off in a corner of the living room, Pussums sneezed. She was a little allergic, too, but as long as the humans took a bath every day, it wasn't a big problem. As far as Pussums was concerned, she could live with it.

I
t started last
week. Though I guess it would make more sense to say it started next week—not that I've been able to make total sense out of this. Anyhow, on Sunday night, Mom made me go to bed early because there was school the next day. I was pretty angry, because I was right near the end of this cool movie. I tried to talk Mom into letting me stay up, but she wouldn't listen.

When I got to my room, I smacked my clock. It went flying off my dresser and hit the wall so hard, the case cracked. Good. It was a stupid clock, anyhow. It showed the time, but it also had the day of the week and the month and all that stuff, like I didn't already know it was Sunday night, May 3.

When I woke, I wondered why I wasn't still half asleep, like I usually was on a Monday. It was bright outside. Definitely past the time I got up for school.

I rushed downstairs. Mom and Dad were at the kitchen table, eating bagels.

“Hi, sleepyhead,” Mom said.

“Grab a bagel,” Dad said.

Dad always goes out for bagels on Saturday. But it wasn't Saturday—it was Monday.

But if it was Monday, why wasn't Mom frantically packing a lunch and yelling at me to get ready for the bus?

I sat at the table, feeling like I'd been thumped on the head. As the day passed, I discovered it really was Saturday. That's what the newspaper said. And that's what kind of shows were on TV—Saturday cartoons. I'd already watched them this weekend, but I didn't mind seeing them again. That's one of the good things about cartoons—you can watch them over and over.

Even my cracked clock was still working, because it also showed that it was Saturday. The weird thing was that as the day passed, I could see the dial with the days of the week slowly turning, and it looked like it was going backwards.

The next morning, I woke up to find it was Friday. The only bad thing about that was I had to go to school. Thursday followed Friday. By the time Wednesday came, the pattern was obvious. I was waking up a day earlier each morning. The day itself ran forward. I got up in the morning and went to bed at night. But I was moving backwards through the week. And the month.

That should have creeped me out. And it did for a little bit—until I sprained my ankle in gym class. It hurt like crazy. But not for long. I went to bed in pain, and I woke up fine in the morning.

That's when I realized that anything I did to myself wouldn't last. If I broke a bone, it would only hurt for the rest of that day. Even if I got hurt so bad that I passed out, I'd wake up just fine in the morning.

If I got in a fight, the kid I hit wouldn't be angry with me
the next day. For him, the fight had never happened. I could beat someone up after school, and never worry about the consequences. If I didn't do my homework, nobody would ever know. If I ate three bowls of ice cream, I didn't have to worry about the calories. whatever I did, there would be no long-term consequences. No permanent record. No lasting breaks or scars.

The only thing that remained broken was the clock. The crack in the case was always there. The wheels always turned the wrong way. I tried changing the date so I could stay in the weekend, but the control was jammed. I didn't waste much energy worrying about the clock. I had other things on my mind.

I went after the ice cream big-time. A half gallon a day. The best part was that Mom never noticed, because each morning happened before the day I ate the ice cream. Even when I got caught with an empty carton and a spoon, and yelled at for being a pig, there wasn't any real punishment. Each new morning erased everything I'd done the day before. My parents had no more idea I'd done something wrong than our goldfish did.

I learned to skateboard. Even bad breaks were bearable as long as I knew they'd be gone the next morning. There was only one problem—I was getting younger. That was fine for now, since I got smarter and smarter than all the kids in my class. Tests were no trouble when all they asked about was easy stuff. I never even had to study anymore. But I didn't want to go so far back that I ended up in kindergarten.

A year passed. And then another. When I found I couldn't reach the top shelf in my closet, I knew I had to swing time back around so it moved in the right direction.

I was afraid to break the clock, since that could stop it from running, and I didn't want to get frozen in time. Or maybe it would just stop the days from changing. But I didn't want to get stuck that way, either, especially now that I was little. I wanted time to move ahead. I figured the best thing was to try to fix it.

I'd miss the ice cream and the thrill of taking ridiculous risks, but I really didn't want to end up in kindergarten, or in a crib. So, right before I went to bed, I unplugged the clock, opened it, and looked inside. There was a bent lever, and one of the gears had fallen off. I straightened the lever, replaced the gear, and put the case together. Then, I plugged the clock back in. As soon as I did, the display spun forward so fast, the dates blurred.

I felt as if I was spinning along with the display. I got so dizzy, I dropped down on my bed. The whole room seemed to be spinning now. The pressure grew so intense, I realized I was going to pass out. As my consciousness slipped away, I wondered whether I really wanted to move forward. I reached for the plug, but I never made it.

I woke up in pain. I was hit with such an unbelievable tidal wave of agony that I almost passed out. Everything ached. Especially my legs. I wanted to look at them, but something was in my way. I tried to raise my head. I could barely move it.

The thing that blocked my view rose and fell like a living creature. At first, I thought I'd been pinned to the bed by some hideous formless monster. Then I realized the thing moved when I breathed. When I gasped, a ripple shot through it.

Oh, no. The beast was my stomach. It was gigantic—so large, it blocked my view and pinned me on my back. I
raised an arm. Rolls of fat hung from it. It was too heavy to hold up for more than a second. I dropped my arm back to the bed as sharp pains burned through my nerves and bones.

I turned my head to the side. The clock was there, set back to the very day and date when I'd broken it. I'd returned to the present like a stretched rubber band, along with all the broken bones and smashed joints I'd picked up in my journey through the past. Along with scrapes and cuts. Along with all the ice cream, candy, pizza, and other food I'd gorged on. Along with every single bad thing I'd done to my body. Even my teeth ached. As I pushed my tongue against them, one fell out. The rest felt loose.

I swatted at the clock, but it was beyond my reach. All I could do was look at it as each agonizing minute ticked by. Today was a nightmare. I knew tomorrow wouldn't be any better. All I had for comfort was memories of yesterday, and those were quickly fading.